November 2016

July 06, 2013

Hi all! Just as I promised, I am back with a post about the Fourth of July. Don't worry, if you're not from these parts, and this is not a holiday you celebrate. I still have some ideas for you all. Because wherever you're from, I bet there is some celebration of your home's history and culture.

The Traditions

Like any holiday, really, there are two aspects to record about Fourth of July. The first, is the sights, the sounds, the foods, the traditions, the people. All of which fit into the category of how we celebrate. These things make up the actual experience of the holiday, and they are, therefore, easier to capture and record. But still, how can we take those moments and turn them into part of the story of our lives? Sometimes, we can't. Sometimes the story simply is, we went here, we saw this, we ate that. But sometimes, if we give ourselves time, we can think of a context that makes the story more meaningful.

Here is my example: Last year, we went on a two week road trip. We watched the Fourth of July fireworks from a motel parking lot in Kentucky. I have had these photos for a year, but never scrapped them before. I took them out to scrap now, and I didn't plan on adding any story to the photos. They were to be my example of simply recording an event. But when my son saw the pictures, he said with a touch of nostalgia, "Oh, that was so fun." Now, I'm pretty sure when we saw the fireworks, we were tired, and though they were neat, they were not really a highlight of our trip. But that's where the story emerged--in the year since our road trip, all the bumps on that long, long road have been forgotten, and we just have fond memories of it all.

I challenge you to think about the context of where your holiday fits in to the larger picture of your life. Was it boring, stressful, more exciting, or less exciting than years passed? Are you celebrating with new people, or the usual mix? Just adding a sentence or two can change the nature of your journaling. If, like me, a story doesn't take shape for a long time, well, wait to scrap the photos, or scrap them twice!

Digging Deeper

Just like every holiday has the rituals, they also have their deeper meanings; what it all represents. That can be harder to capture, because it is more of an emotional response to a holiday. Those feelings are hard to capture on camera, difficult to express in words, and guess what else? Those feelings don't always show up on the day they are supposed to.

So what are we really celebrating, when it comes to any country's Independence Day? To me, it's primarily about a feeling of connection to a history, a culture, and a community. It's being part of something bigger than myself. What brings out those feelings in you? They can happen any time of year, in any place. You can feel the connection to your country, your city, or just some great neighbors.

For my examples, once again, I scrapped about last year's road trip, because I was so amazed by how ginormous this country is, and all that exists and has happened inside it. I included both serious events, and those that are simply part of our popular culture. They all make me feel part of something larger.

And here is a more traditionally patriotic experience from this week; A copy of the Declaration of Independence, handwritten by Thomas Jefferson, and an original copy of the Bill of Rights, were on display at the New York Public Library. Really, what more could a scrapbooker want to see more than a really old, piece of paper?! Unfortunately, photos were not allowed, so I needed to rely on words to describe the experience. Which again was the feeling of something big, and powerful, and awesome.

So wherever you are from, take note of those times you feel that little tug of pride, of connection, of loyalty. Try describing those moments with words; it could be a lot of words, or just a few. Any number will do, really.

July 05, 2013

Today we are back with two new photo challenges for our secret mission to be unveiled in August. We are looking for photos that represent summer. And remember they need to be croppable to a square!

take a flip flops photo

Flip flops are the ultimate representation of summer's relaxation. Maybe shoot your favorite pair. Or show how many gather by the door on any given day. Or maybe shoot down if your standing, or long if your lying down.

take a photo of the summer sun

Shoot directly, or gather the radiance on a long summer's eve. Withering plants, jugs of lemonade, tanned skin, or other effects of a strong summer sun also will fit!

Don't forget to save your photos to a separate file that you can access easily at the end of summer. And try to build as we go! It will make our project much more fun when summer's end comes!

July 04, 2013

I'm going to be whispering today, so you might want to lean in close so you can hear me. There. That's good.

I'm on a secret mission to get my teenage son interested in photography. Shhh. Don't tell him.

Any hobby will do, really. I just love having hobbies so much. With them, I am (almost) never bored. So, I can't help but want the same for my kids. My younger son has many interests, while my teenage son... a little less so. And because we are now in the midst of summer vacation, finding ways to avoid boredom is important. We are two weeks into summer break, and so far, so good.

One of the ways we are filling our days is to go on a weekly photo/neighborhood walk. Each week, we pick a part of the city to explore, and I told Max that he needs to take pictures while we walk. (I figured with a task at hand, he will be less likely to complain.) And, take photos, he did. Now I am hoping that by printing and displaying some of his photos, he might be inspired to take even more pictures. So, I took an old, one dollar, 4x6 photo album, and created this cover. I tried not to mom it up too much, so just tiny bit of embellishment on the cover.

I had a harder time resisiting making the inside cover and the first page a little bit cute:

So after that, I have a few pages of plain, old, 4x6 photos.

My children are always teasing me when I stop to photograph leaves, or flowers, or just lines on the sidewalk. So, in the spirit of mocking me, Max took some photos of, well, trash. But, me being me, I liked them. So, I added a few of those too, along with an explanation:

I'll let you know how the rest of "Project Max" goes in the end. Worst case scenario, I have a small album of photos from our summer sitting decoratively on my coffee table.

In case you're thinking, "Wait! Today is July 4th! Shouldn't this post be about the holiday?" Not to fear. I'll be back for the Write post on Saturday, with some thoughts about recording this special day.

July 03, 2013

Hi there! I am back again with a little scrapbooking inspiration for capturing your summer! Today I wanted to talk about summer reading lists. Do you have one? Perhaps your kids make one? Wouldn´t it be fun to keep a photo/list of what you or someone else likes to read right now?! I think the stack of books you have on your nightstand totally can represent who you are at a certain time in your life, right?

I have always been a reader and I don´t read more in the summer, but I perhaps choose lighter topics when I know I will read on the beach or in my hammock and I most likely will doze of after a few pages :)

For my page I took a photo of my books in the bookcase. Then I added the text before printing it. I used Pickmonkey.com a free site where you can do all sorts of editing. But ofcourse you can add text to your photos in Photoshop or even WORD.

July 02, 2013

Hello, it's Jenny Larson, and it's summer, which means one big thing for me: organization. I teach high school students the rest of the year, so most of my organziation happens in the summer. I thought I'd share for you my sorting and purging process for my scraps, plus a way I challenge myself creatively while doing it.

First, I store my scraps by color in file folders in this bin (plus a seprarate file each for themes, multicolors, and stripes. If papers are two sided, I file them by my favorite sides). As you can see it is stuffed; I haven't sorted and purged in a while, so it's time!

The first thing I do is go through each piece. I don't look at brand. I just go by my gut if I think I'll use it again, particularly based on what's in my stash now. If I have a lot of a particular pattern (yes, red polka dots, I'm talking about you), then I just include one or two.

This is my finished, thinner red scraps file. (Note about the file folders: I think I got them in the Target dollar section, which is where I get most of my scrapping organization tools, in addition to the clearance section at Joann's.)

Occasionally I have to stop and get nostalgic. Remember Chatterbox and Scenic Route? Two of my all time faves. *Sigh*

And this is the finished, much emptier scrap bucket! It will be much less cumbersome for me to dig in and use my scraps now.

Next issue: what to do with the scraps?

There's many things you can do with them, but I take them to my sons' former day care. They use them to teach colors and have the kids practice cutting and making art projects. I don't feel bad at all about donating them there because I tend to use patterned paper more than once and still end up with big scraps at the end.

To challenge myself as I purged, I randomly selected pieces to use on a page. I started with the die cut paper on the bottom. I figured if I didn't challenge myself to use it, I would have to toss it. From there I kept out random pieces that seemed to match.

And here's the page I made with the final, random scraps! Everything here is old Stash, so I feel very good now.

Thank you for sharing my sorting/purging/organization process! Good luck as you tackle any organizational challenges yourself this summer.

July 01, 2013

This month our theme is Ten Things. Lists are suck a lovely way to capture the essentials. They can help you focus your thoughts, to make order out of your photo stacks, and to provide a starting place for a layout. Let's look and see how our awesome team took on the theme. If you would like to see the layouts larger and read the journaling, pop on over to the photo album!

A Note from AlizaA co-worker recently played the song, “New York City” by They Might Be Giants at work. I am not usually a romantic music type, but as soon as I heard it, I felt a little teary, and I knew I wanted to make a layout with me and my husband. I typed out the lyrics to the chorus on vellum, and I used my top 10 photos from around the city, that I felt captured the city and our lives in it. However, I didn't have a picture of us together! I had to do a little silly Photoshop work to make that happen.

A Note from CelesteErica Hernandez recently offered a series of 31 "All About Me" word art prompts on her blog. I just loved how she made the cut outs with the titles so I took one of them and modified it a bit to make my title. I then wrote up my list and gathered photos that I had on hand paired with images from the web to create a grid. This gives a little snapshot into my June.

July Fun FactI might be a little too excited for both my boys to go to sleep away camp the same week this month. I know by mid-week I'll be missing them terribly!

10 Weeks of Viggo | Lisa Ottosson

A Note from LisaI twisted the theme of favorite 10 a bit. Almost every week since my nephew was born in February I have featured a photo of him in my Project Life album, calling it Weekly Viggo. On this layout I have 10 weeks worth of Weekly Viggos' ;)

July Fun FactI love being an aunt! I couldn't have imagined how much it would mean to me. And of course my 2 nieces and 2 nephews are the greatest kids!

10 Favorite Pictures | Ann Costen

A Note from AnnFor this month's theme, I chose to do a pictorial list by creating the first 12x12 layout from our epic adventure to South East Asia in March 2013. I was so exhausted from the trip that it took me several weeks just to edit some pictures and get them printed. I took close to 4000 pictures over 24 days so it was quite difficult to pick the 10 that are part of this layout. Looking at these, I'm still amazed at all that we did and saw on this trip! I am creating a 5-up album to document this trip (to be shared in September) and I'm using the same digital kit for both the 5-up album and the 12x12 pages.

July Fun FactWe ate deep fried bamboo worms and stir-fried frogs in Thailand. We drew the line at the BBQ field rats and did NOT eat those!

Top Ten | Amy Coose

A Note from AmyI wanted to capture my family’s top ten lists so that we would be able to look back and see what was important to us. I am going to make sure that I do this every year, so we can see how our tastes change.

July Fun FactI am not a big fan of summer because I HATE to be hot. Sweating all day long doesn't appeal to me in the least, and I’d take the cold over the heat any day!

A Note from ChristineI have several layouts over the years that depict sun rays (both digital and paper). To me it is the perfect symbol of summer and I love creating the sun rays. For this layout, I layered washi tape horizontally and vertically across a sheet of white cardstock. Then I cut out the big circle from the layers of tape to create the main part of my sun.

July Fun FactI think of July as the "sandwich month" of summer. June is the start and August is the end. July doesn't seem as fun, but I'm determined to make it fun this year!

A Note from ChristaMy oldest daughter just finished up fifth grade this year and I just can't believe how utterly fast time flies! I had her come up with her best moments of elementary school list and it was so fascinating to see what stuck out to her versus what stuck in my mind.

July Fun FactJuly is all about water activities for us since it gets so incredibly hot here. Looking forward to field trips to several beaches with my family!

A Note from DianeDoing a layout about how much I love apps and how they have simplified my life and made things more fun has been on my mind for awhile. The "Top 10" theme this month was the perfect way to document it. As I sit here looking at my finished layout I've noticed that four of my favorite apps are photography related and one other app tracks all my social media and lets me record little notes and photos that I don't post to social media. It is easy to see from this layout that my iPhone and its apps are an important tool in my memory keeping process.

July Fun FactI recently traveled to France with my husband and while there enjoyed a cooking lesson with a chef that cooked for Jacques Chirac, the former President of France.

First 10 Books | Marnie Flores

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (Glitz) + font (Bondoluo)

A Note from MarnieFor the past few years I have tried to read 5 books a month. This year, I am hoping for 2 a month and trying to keep my house tidy each day. Much less fun...

July Fun FactFootball practice begins this month. With five days of gymnastics and five days of football each week, June seemed to slip through our fingers. We are going to make a better effort to enjoy summer this month!

A Note from KatieThis layout is based on my road trip to NYC to visit my sister last week. We drove 11 hours each way and also drove to the beach on Long Island one day, so we were in the car a lot. We had such fun listening to Top 40 pop songs! I wanted a fun, layered look for this layout, and used two pics from my phone to document the drive.

July Fun FactIn early August I’m taking an adults only girls trip with a couple of friends to Disney World! I can’t wait!

A Note from ValerieIt was fun to record 10 things about my son that are "right now." I kept supplies and complexity to the bare minimum and will most likely add an 8 1/2 x 11 photo when placing in an album. This is something I look forward to periodically doing again in the future.

July Fun FactLooking forward to camping with friends this month.

Before we go, we have some good and bad news. Bad first.

The time has come to say goodbye to Erin Sweeney, Deb Duty, Monika Wright, and Paula Gilarde. However can we do that?? Erin and Paula have been with us from the beginning--we love Erin's sense of humor and Paula's innate goodness. Monika joined us not long after we started and brought with her unbridled enthusiasm and kindness. Then Deb came. With a depth of compassion and her well designed pages she won us over immediately. Saying goodbye to them brings us heavy hearts, though we know they are all bound for much success. Thank you, friends, for your dedication and hard work, and for touching our lives for the better.

And now the good news. We want to introduce to eight new teammates. We are so excited to have them join us and we can't wait for you to fall in love with them as we already have begun to. Here they are!

Aren't they beautiful? They are wonderful women who make wonderful pages. To get to know them more, click on their name in the left hand column where you will find some bios bits and links to their blogs. Oh, how excited we are to have them join our family!

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave some love for our departing friends and for those arriving.